Maturity in the MMO

In the brief history of the MMO there has been a strong effort to keep the content at a child safe level. Which, by itself is neither good nor bad. Children should be able to play online games, and their parents should- with a little investigation on their part- be reasonably confident their offspring are not being exposed to inappropriate material.

However, I should add you have not been cussed at until you've been chewed out online by a twelve year old who thinks you poached the rare spawn they'd been camping for all day. Maybe childsafe should mean we're safe from them?

Anyway, this has been the long standing case- MMO' are family friendly.

However, that is changing. With the median age of the game player going up every year, there is more and more of a demand for mainstream games to address adult content. Adult content that does not necessarily mean graphic depictions of sex- although some mainstream games approach this as with EA Games big hit Mass Effect- or something so simple as nudity- although this is also available in more and more mainstream work.

In Mass Effect it is possible for the PC and an alien NPC to have a physical relationship. Not hinted at, not suggested, but openly discussed and brought up by the NPC. While, the actual “sex” scene was highly over rated on FOX news and is never actually depicted anymore than what you see in a PG movie it is there.

But these, like the GTA series have been stand alone games played in the solitude of the home. However, now that is changing. With Gravity Games new release, Requiem: Bloodymare adult content is part of a massive multiplayer game. While there have been no reports of sex scenes, there is more mature content in the form of combat.

As players fight and are wounded, their avatar's reflect this as well as the npcs. And, from personal experience, one of the character classes can decapitate an enemy combatant.

And let me tell you, that is a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Combat of course has always been a vital part of video gaming, but to my knowledge this is the first time a MMO has graphically depicted combat and blood as a direct result of player interaction.

And Requiem is not alone. Another MMO about to be releases is Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures. This MMO is being developed by Funcom in Oslo, and has promised to be faithful to the source matieral- the Conan novels and movies.

Which, if you recall, are not exactly shy about nudity, sex, violence, and gore.

And I can't bring myself to say it's a bad thing. When handled properly- and I mean good storytelling- adult content is the most satisfying. It offers a fully span of the human experience. We confirm within ourselves what it is we have experienced.

And while we have not all experienced decapitations, violence, or even sex it is appropriate to talk about them, to use them to tell our stories.